The Volokh Conspiracy
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"Misguided Anti-Racism Campaign Cancels College Sondheim Production"
From Northwestern law professor Andrew Koppelman (The Hill) (this is the unexpurgated version that I received by e-mail, so I'm including it instead of just linking to the Hill version):
John Wilkes Booth was a racist murderer, but that apparently wasn't the worst thing about him. The worst thing was that he used "the N-word."
Isn't that a bizarre thing to say? Not too bizarre, evidently, for the social media campaign that pressured a Northwestern University theater group into cancelling its production of Stephen Sondheim's classic musical "Assassins." The cancellation was part of a misguided effort to fight racism, and it is a window into how counterproductive such efforts have sometimes become.
"Assassins" is a deeply ironic depiction of America's presidential assassins, attempted and successful, and their place in the national imagination. It flopped when it first opened on Broadway in 1990 but has since been recognized as one of Sondheim's major works.
At one point in the show, Booth, who killed Abraham Lincoln, calls his victim a "niggerlover." It comes at the end of a soliloquy full of the familiar bilge about the noble lost Southern cause, and it is intended to shock the audience. It does. No substituted euphemism could have the same effect. It is an ugly moment, and it is historically accurate. But racist murder is an ugly thing.
Theater is a potent medium for showing us the truth of what people do to one another. Iris Murdoch wrote that the best art "shows us the world, our world and not another one, with a clarity which startles and delights us simply because we are not used to looking at the real world at all."
The objections to the show, as reported by the Daily Northwestern, included claims that "using that word in that statement is a form of violence," a "racist action" with "nothing else to defend it," "disregarding of the humanity," that "reflects a failure to consider the lived experiences of Black students."
The theater group eventually capitulated to the pressure, cancelled the final weekend of performances and released an official statement: "We are profoundly sorry for the harm we caused. Art should never come at the expense of the safety of Black and POC communities. Because of our actions and inactions, it did."
This is magical thinking. Some unspecified Black Americans are allegedly going to suffer some unspecified harm because somewhere on the Northwestern campus, someone is uttering a vicious word. Does anyone really believe that? Or is there just some satisfaction (or, in some cases, safety) in joining a solidaristic ritual of people together saying they believe it?
One of the persistent follies of the political left is confusing symbolic actions for real ones. Real racial subordination consists of decaying neighborhoods, bad education, joblessness, mass incarceration, poor health and violence — real violence, not hurt feelings because of vicious language. These injuries are not ameliorated by a requirement that any literary depiction of racism must make it appear less nasty than it is.
It is, of course, easier to engage in this kind of performative virtue-signaling than to address the causal processes that are actually destroying the lives of Black Americans. We need our best minds, the kind of students who attend Northwestern, to think hard about that. One strategy that is guaranteed to fail is relentless self-examination by whites — what John McWhorter calls "willfully incurious, self-flagellating piety, of a kind that has helped no group in human history."
After this sorry episode, one wonders whether the theater program at Northwestern will ever dare again to portray racism on the stage. It will likely turn, instead, to safer topics. One of the central ways in which oppression maintains itself is by keeping people thinking about something else.
This is a disaster both for education at the university where I teach and for the effort to actually do something about the genuine evils that Black Americans suffer in American society. In its small way, this misguided campaign has contributed to systemic racism.
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Kind of an ironic essay, actually.
He virtue signals about racism being the cause of various inner city problems, then complains of virtue signaling.
Then he says, " One of the central ways in which oppression maintains itself is by keeping people thinking about something else." of an action by people he probably thinks aren't the oppressors...
Why does it seem more people are obsessed with antiracism today than in the 1960's?
Unless what is called antiracism today is not what was called an antiracism in the 1960's...
A lot of it is civil rights crusade envy, I suspect. They wish that they'd been around to take part in the civil rights crusade, but it's too late.
So they pretend things are as bad or worse today, so they can imagine themselves being just as heroic. And then they have to redefine civil rights, to have something to crusade against.
And, of course, look at MLK's own trajectory: He comes out with that eloquent plea for color blindness, and in a few years, faced with Moses like the promised land of roughly comparable outcomes being for another generation to enjoy, decides, "Screw principle, hello racial preferences!"
The Democrats have been insisting that good racial discrimination is the only way to fight bad racial discrimination, ever since.
I recall what you wrote.
https://reason.com/volokh/2025/01/22/trumps-executive-order-banning-affirmative-action-and-dei-preferences/?comments=true#comment-10881183
A basic problem here is that you can, demonstrably, persuade people that racial discrimination is a moral wrong. The general public has arrived at that position, even if some of our governing elites haven't yet.
And you can persuade people that racial discrimination is morally right, at least if it's against OTHER people, as Jim Crow demonstrated.
What has yet to be demonstrated is that you can persuade the majority that racial discrimination against themselves is morally right.
Advocates of racial preferences, for whatever excuse, risk a partial victory: Persuading the majority that racial discrimination isn't wrong, while failing to persuade them that it ought to be against themselves.
That's not a place we want to return to, is it?
Antiracism adopted features religions use for control, like if you aren't with us, i.e. just sitting to the side, then you are against us, i.e. part of the problem.
And manipulative guilt through learnin' ya you have original sin.
And social ostracism.
It was a stroke of genius because that's been proven to work for millenia. And lamentable because religious control is bad because of these things engendering power monger control, not because of a few fanciful statements from Tolkein's Lord of the Middle East.
Q: Why is it that the further (in time) we move from slavery and Jim Crow, the louder / more urgent-sounding are the calls to "fight racism"?
A: "[T]hose whose job it is to eliminate a problem (like racism) always broaden the definition of what needs to be eliminated." (source)
One must keep in mind that they are not necessarily the same people.
Even as early as the 1990's, many people who marched for civil rights, who donated a significant chunk of their income to civil rights campaigns, stopped doing so. They focused on career, family, and other hobbies. Despite the Good Ol' Boys' Roundup scandal being blown wide open during that decade, things were far better than in the 1960's.
The people who were left the the ones who expanded the definition of racism. And while eternal vigilance is the price of equality, it is a rather poor fundraising pitch.
Because you're 12 years old?
Because those blacks who promote CRT don't want to receive the blame they deserve for their own continuing economic and social failure.
Most blacks do not have that problem, because they don't go around all day with chips on their shoulders. That is all CRT is.
One strategy that is guaranteed to fail is relentless self-examination by whites — what John McWhorter calls "willfully incurious, self-flagellating piety, of a kind that has helped no group in human history."
The OP examples a kind of double-loser critique. The usual pace of bad advocacy gets multiplied, to maximize whatever loss a reader's misjudged time investment inflicts.
The notion that use of racial slurs in literary art is categorically wrong ought to be rejected.
The notion that anti-racism is the real racism ought to be rejected.
What is the right approach? Use judgment. Do not publish drivel.
"The notion that anti-racism is the real racism ought to be rejected."
Well, duh. "Anti-racism" isn't "the" real racism. It IS real racism, of course, but it's not the only form of real racism.
If a group of black people nicely ask you not to use racial slurs, why not just show a little empathy and comply? Can't you find a play to perform that doesn't have racial slurs?
Yes, and they will, and the whole point of the play, to educate about what real racism is, will be lost in favor of the good ship Lollipop.
Better for the group of black people to show a little common sense, in this context.
The play, or that part of it, is about an evil racist who assassinated a president. What in the world is wrong with putting a racist word in his mouth?
If someone made a play about Hitler, should they bowdlerize the term "Jew" to read "certain semitic people?"
If they don't like the musical, due to language or otherwise, they can decide not to go. They didn't need to prevent other people from seeing it.
It consistently astounds me how people like Pianist do not understand how anti-racist plays and movies need to display racism in its worst forms in order to condemn it. Or should we be banning “Blazing Saddles” next?
Some people can't handle the truth - - - - - - - -
"One of the persistent follies of the political left is confusing symbolic actions for real ones. "
No. The "political left" wants to rewrite history. They are trying to hide the fact that they were the driving force behind racism. Look at the statues that were torn down and the places that were renamed. Those statues were erected by Democrats. Those places were named by Democrats.
They quake in fear of a word, like Mantan Moreland in a Charlie Chan movie. While pretending righteous anger. It's the slave mentality - it's all massa's fault.
If you fuck a goat on stage as part of a play, you still fucked a goat.
But this relies on fucking a goat actually being wrong in some basic sense, not merely a contextual wrong.
While we KNOW that saying "nigger" is just a contextual wrong; It's wrong to use it as an insult, (Because it has become an insult.) and that's about it. Blacks use it among themselves all the time, it's not insulting somebody to accurately quote historical sources.
Sure, the left, with their mania about controlling everybody's speech, want to make it more than that, but that's all it is: An insult, when used AS an insult. And nothing more.
By that reasoning, someone who fucks a goat ironically hasn't truly fucked a goat.
TwelveInchPianist: I'm not sure quite how your argument works. As I understand it, we utterly routinely draw a distinction between what actors say on stage and what they say in ordinary life. If, for instance, a man calls his wife an "idiot" in front of friends, our reaction is "This man is rude, insensitive, and disloyal." If the same man calls an actress playing his wife an "idiot" on stage in front of actors playing their friends, our reaction is "The character whom the man is playing is a rude, insensitive, and disloyal." Indeed, if someone faulted the actor, in real life, for his behavior on stage, we'd be puzzled about what the objection might even be, right?
Likewise, say a person in real life starts telling you about how Lincoln was a bad President because he freed the slaves, and how the country would be a much better place if we still had slavery. I take it we'd take a pretty dim view of that person, even if he doesn't use any slurs in saying so. But if an actor says the same thing in character, surely we wouldn't take a dim view of the actor (though we would take a dim view of the character), right?
This, I take it, reflects the distinction that Brett Bellmore is drawing (and that we usually draw without even needing to think about it). Having sex with a goat is seen as disgusting because it's sex with a goat. Likewise, if the actor, say, kills a (real) kitten as part of the play, that may be seen as bad because it's killing a kitten.
But words are understood based on what they mean in context, and an actor calling someone an "idiot" or defending slavery in character is seen as completely different from the actor calling the person an idiot or defending slavery in ordinary life. Am I right so far? And, if so, why wouldn't the same apply to "nigger-lover"?
Wow, I guess I stepped in it. I thought more people would be familiar with Popehat's rule of goats (which I've never really agreed with, for the reasons you and Brett describe).
To be clear, I was mocking that argument, not trying to make it. I figured I might yank a few chains, but I didn't intend to yank the main chain.
Sorry for the confusion.
Aha! Sorry that whooshed right on by me ....
Me, too.
Never even heard of that rule before. Thank you for expanding my education ... I think?
Just to be clear, I am familiar with Poehat's rule of goats. But that you were mocking it was, to put it mildly, obscure.
That he was trying to mock it was pretty obvious, given that he's got a many year posting history this year and we can evaluate his comments from that perspective.
But his effort was pretty sad, as being an actor and being a troll are entirely different pursuits.
"But his effort was pretty sad, as being an actor and being a troll are entirely different pursuits"
Sigh. That makes the analogy sad, not my criticism of it. The analogy seeks to demonstrate that violating racial taboos is bad regardless of context.
But as this context shows, that's not the case.
If you think actually racism is just as harmful as transgressive or ironic racially offensive comments, racist jokes, etc., then you really don't understand the problem.
I realize you’re trolling, but there’s a bit of a category error here.
At one end of the spectrum, you have mentioning an offense word rather than using it, like Prof. Koppelman did. I don’t think anyone is actually offended by this, although obviously some people opportunistically pretend to be.
You then have a fictionalized depiction of the offensive thing. I agree that it is absolutely absurd for anyone to be offended by this example, but I don’t think that just because something is fictional makes it immune from this kind of criticism. I would, for instance, think it pretty reasonable for people to be upset if a group at their college was performing, say, a staged reading of the NYPD Cannibal Cop’s stories,
What Popehat (and what a shame at how far he’s lost the plot in the last few years) is referring to is something else: using or doing the offensive thing in real life, and then claiming that you were only doing it ironically, like Michael Richards’s response to that heckler or Elon Musk’s Nazi salute. And there, I think Popehat had a point that the irony is not much of a defense.
IIUC Musk denies that what he did was a Nazi salute at all, but assuming that's what he was doing, it seems to me that there's a vast gulf between doing a Nazi salute to express your view that Jews should be packed into boxcars and sent to camps where they will be put into ovens and gassed, and doing a Nazi salute for any other purpose, including depicting a Nazi in a play, or irony.
If your main objection to racially offensive language is that it violates some sort of taboo, you're missing the plot.
If the people who said that the natural condition of the Negro was in permanent servile bondage to the superior white race were being ironic, history would have been very different.
And Popehat's contention, which I agree with, is that there is not a vast gulf between between doing a Nazi salute to express your view that Jews should be packed into boxcars and sent to camps where they will be put into ovens and gassed, and doing a Nazi salute for irony. (To be sure, the real point is that "irony" is the defense Nazis use when they're caught; there are no people sincerely being ironic Nazis.)
"And Popehat's contention, which I agree with, is that there is not a vast gulf between between doing a Nazi salute to express your view that Jews should be packed into boxcars and sent to camps where they will be put into ovens and gassed, and doing a Nazi salute for irony."
So the fact that the former literally ended up with jews being sent to camps and gassed is just a minor detail? Lots of people violate such taboos just to be transgressive.
The reason real racism isn't like fucking a goat is that it leads to harm beyond the taboo it violates. Transgressive or ironic racism doesn't.
The “social media campaign” is on the short list for worst modern innovation.
The author tries to outflank the woke with his own wokeness, including going on about systemic racism. But you can't out-woke these crusaders.
I doubt very much that you can use woke to cast out woke.
Compare (from the Wikipedia page for the 1984 film Once Upon a Time in America (link)):
Numerous women at the film's premiere reacted furiously, mostly due to the two rape sequences. One among them later confronted Robert De Niro in a press conference and made harsh comments to the film's depiction, describing it as "blatant, gratuitous violence". In general, the rape scenes specifically were controversial. ... Of the scene in which De Niro's character rapes her character, Elizabeth McGovern said it "didn't glamorize violent sex: it is extremely uncomfortable to watch and it is meant to be". She went on to state:
And if you say, "this violence is wrong", you'd have to enlarge that to say, "all violence in movies in wrong", and then you'd have to say, "you can only make movies about good people who obey the law and do right things" which a) excludes a lot of what life is and b) makes for some very boring movies.
I don't insist on movies that don't have bad people in them, but I get bored fast with movies that only have bad people in them.
A classic leopard eating my face story.
Pretty funny really.
The article from the student newspaper about the incident includes a “content warning” for its “discussion of the use of the N-word.” “Nigger” is expurgated, mind you. But you still need a content warning for discussion of the use of the N-word. And a warning for discussion of discussion of the use of the N-word. And a warning for mention of discussion of discussion of the use of the N-word. Warnings all the way down.
“using that word in that statement is a form of violence,"
Your speech is violence!
At this rate, Northwestern may have to cancel teaching history, civil rights law, and much else, all of which contain material that will make these folks feel very uncomfortable.
You can’t teach a sex education class without naming any parts or actions. And if you can’t name He Who Must Not Be Named, you end up with a Defense Against The Dark Arts Class taught by Dolores Umbridge.
For my sins, I watched the woke version of Around the World in 80 Days on the BBC. One episode featured the Ku Klux Klan, and they were the politest racist killers you could ever hope to meet. No racial slurs, no hoods and robes, just attempted murder.
The Northwestern wokies would love it.
If certain words are violence, then physically attacking a speaker who uses such words is justifiable self-defense. I think that may be the point.
I'm unable to come up with a guiding principle that allows for banning this musical while also allowing the teaching of 'Huckleberry Finn.' On a college campus.
On social issues, I think liberals have the stronger arguments much of the time. This is definitely not one of those situations. Liberals (well, the small group of them who are in favor of censoring this performance) are not only wrong here; they are so massively wrong that it's segued into cringe-worthy embarrassment.